His muscles ached and his knees were trembling even before he hadreached the street. When he tried to board a 'bus he was waved away,so he called a cab, piled his blueprints inside of it, and thenclambered in on top of them. He realized that he was badly frightened.

To this day the sight of a blueprint gives Louis Mitchell a peculiarnausea and a fluttering sensation about the heart. At three o'clockthe next morning he felt his way blindly to his bed and toppled uponit, falling straightway into a slumber during which he passed throughmonotonous, maddening wastes of blue and white, over which ranserpentine rows of figures.

He was up with the dawn and at his desk again, but by four thatafternoon he was too dazed, too exhausted to continue. His eyes wereplaying him tricks, the room was whirling, his hand was shaking untilhis fingers staggered drunkenly across the sheets of paper. Groundplans, substructures, superstructures, were jumbled into a frightfultangle. He wanted to yell. Instead he flung the drawings about theroom, stamped savagely upon them, then rushed down-stairs and devoureda table d'hote dinner. He washed the meal down with a bottle of redwine, smoked a long cigar, then undressed and went to bed amid thescattered blueprints. He slept like a dead man.

He arose at sun-up, clear-headed, calm. All day he worked like amachine, increasing his speed as the hours flew. He took good care toeat and drink, and, above all, to smoke at regular intervals, but hedid not leave his room. By dark he had much of the task behind him; bymidnight he began to have hope; toward dawn he saw the end; and whendaylight came he collapsed.

He had deciphered the tank and superstructure plans on forty-five setsof blueprints, had formulated a proposition, exclusive of substructurework, basing a price per pound on the American market then ruling,f.o.b. tidewater, New York. He had the proposition in his pocketwhen he tapped on the ground-glass door of Mr. Peebleby's office atten-twenty-nine Thursday morning.

The Director General of the great Robinson-Ray Syndicate was genuinelysurprised to learn that the young American had completed a bid in soshort a time, then requested him, somewhat absent-mindedly, to leaveit on his desk where he could look it over at his leisure.

"Just a moment," said his caller. "I'm going to sit down and talk toyou again. How long have you been using cyanide tanks, Mr. Peebleby?"

"Ever since they were adopted." Mr. Peebleby was visibly annoyed atthis interruption to his morning's work.

"Well, I can give you a lot of information about them."

The Director General raised his brows haughtily. "Ah! Suggestions,amendments, improvements, no doubt."

"Exactly."

"In all my experience I never sent out a blueprint which some youthfulsalesman could not improve upon. Generally the younger the salesmanthe greater the improvement."

In Mitchell's own parlance he "beat Mr. Peebleby to the punch." "Ifthat's the case, you've got a rotten line of engineers," he franklyannounced.

"Indeed! I went over those drawings myself. I flattered myself thatthey were comprehensive and up-to-date." Mr. Peebleby was annoyed,nevertheless he was visibly interested and curious.

"Well, they're not," the younger man declared, eying him boldly."For instance, you call for cast-iron columns in your sub-andsuper-structures, whereas they're obsolete. We've discarded them. Whatyou save in first cost you eat up, twice over, in freight. Not onlythat, but their strength is a matter of theory, not of fact. Then,too, in your structural-steel sections your factor of safety iswrongly figured. To get the best results your lower tanks are twentyinches too short and your upper ones nine inches too short. Foranother thing, you're using a section of beam which is five per cent.heavier than your other dimensions call for."

The Director General sat back in his chair, a look of extremealertness replacing his former expression.

"My word! Is there anything else?" He undertook to speak mockingly,but without complete success.

"There is. The layout of your platework is all wrong--out of line withmodern practice. You should have interchangeable parts in every tank.The floor of your lower section should be convex, instead of flat, toget the run-off. You see, sir, this is my line of business."

"Who is your engineer?" inquired the elder man. "I should like to talkto him."

"You're talking to him now. I'm him--it--them. I'm the party! I toldyou I knew the game."

There was a brief silence, then Mr. Peebleby inquired, "By the way,who helped you figure those prints?"

"Nobody."

"You did that _alone_, since Monday morning?" The speaker wasincredulous.

"I did. I haven't slept much. I'm pretty tired."

There was a new note in Mr. Peebleby's voice when he said: "Jove! I'vetreated you badly, Mr. Mitchell, but--I wonder if you're too tired totell my engineers what you told me just now? I should like them tohear you."

"Trot them in." For the first time since leaving this office threedays before, Mitchell smiled. He was getting into his stride at last.After all, there seemed to be a chance.

There followed a convention of the draftsmen and engineers of theRobinson-Ray Syndicate before which an unknown American youthdelivered an address on "Cyanide Tanks. How to Build Them; Where toBuy Them."

It was the old story of a man who had learned his work thoroughly andwho loved it. Mitchell typified the theory of specialization; what heknew, he knew completely, and before he had more than begun his talkthese men recognized that fact. When he had finished, Mr. Peeblebyannounced that the bids would not be opened that day.

The American had made his first point. He had gained time in whichto handle himself, and the Robinson-Ray people had recognized a newfactor in the field. When he was again in the Director General's room,the latter said:

"I think I will have you formulate a new bid along the lines you havelaid down."

"Very well."

"You understand, our time is up. Can you have it ready by Saturday,three days from now?"

Mitchell laughed. "It's a ten days' job for two men."

"I know, but we can't wait."

"Then give me until Tuesday; I'm used to a twenty-four-hour shiftnow. Meanwhile I'd like to leave these figures here for your chiefdraftsman to examine. Of course they are not to be consideredbinding."

"Yes, but not the sort of a weapon you suspect," thought Mitchell."This is a boomerang." Aloud, he answered, lightly: "Oh, that's allright. I know I'm among friends."

When his request was granted he made a mental note, "Step number two!"

Again he filled a cab with drawings, again he went back to theMetropole and to maddening columns of new figures--back to themonotony of tasteless meals served at his elbow.

But there were other things besides his own bid to think of now.Mitchell knew he must find what other firms were bidding on the job,and what prices they had bid. The first promised to require someingenuity, the second was a Titan's task.

Salesmanship, in its highest development, is an exact science. Giventhe data he desired, Louis Mitchell felt sure he could read thefigures sealed up in those other bids to a nicety, but to get thatdata required much concentrated effort and much time. Time was what heneeded above all things; time to refigure these myriad drawings, timeto determine when the other bids had gone in, time to learn tradeconditions at the competitive plants, time to sleep. There were notsufficient hours in the day for all these things, so he rigidlyeconomized on the least important, sleep. He laid out a programfor himself; by night he worked in his room, by day he cruised forinformation, at odd moments around the dawn he slept. He began to feelthe strain before long. Never physically robust, he began to grow blueand drawn about the nostrils. Frequently his food would not stay down.He was forced to drive his lagging spirits with a lash. To accomplishthis he had to think often of his girl-wife. Her letters, writtendaily, were a great help; they were like some God-given cordial thatinfused fresh blood into his brain, new strength into his flagginglimbs. Without them he could not have held up.

With certain definite objects in view he made daily trips toThreadneedle Street. Invariably he walked into the general officesunannounced; invariably he made a new friend before he came out.Peebleby seemed to like him; in fact asked his opinion on certainforms of structure and voluntarily granted the young man two days ofgrace. Two days! They were like oxygen to a dying man.

Mitchell asked permission to talk to the head draftsman and receivedit, and following their interview he requested the privilege ofdictating some notes regarding the interview. In this way he met thestenographer. When he had finished with her he flipped the girl a goldsovereign, stolen from the sadly melted nine hundred and twenty.

As Mitchell was leaving the office the Director General yielded to akindly impulse and advised his new acquaintance to run over to Parisand view the Exposition.

"You can do your figuring there just as well as here," said he."I don't want your trip from Chicago to be altogether wasted, Mr.Mitchell."

Louis smiled and shook his head. "I can't take that Exposition backwith me, and I can take this contract. I think I'll camp with my bid."

In the small hours of that night he made a discovery thatelectrified him. He found that the most commonly used section in hisspecifications, a twelve-inch I-beam, was listed under the Englishcustom as weighing fifty-four pounds per foot, whereas thestandardized American section, which possessed the same carryingstrength, weighed four pounds less. Here was an advantage of eightper cent. in cost and freight! This put another round of the ladderbeneath him; he was progressing well, but as yet he had learnednothing about his competitors.

The next morning he had some more dictation for Peebleby'sstenographer, and niched another sovereign from his sad littlebank-roll. When the girl gave him his copy he fell into conversationwith her and painted a picture of Yankeeland well calculated to keepher awake nights. They gossiped idly, she of her social obligations,he of the cyanide-tank business--he could think of nothing else totalk about. Adroitly he led her out. They grew confidential. Sheadmitted her admiration for Mr. Jenkins from Edinburgh. Yes, Mr.Jenkins's company was bidding on the Krugersdorpf job. He was muchnicer than Mr. Kruse from the Brussels concern, and, anyhow, thoseBelgian firms had no chance at this contract, for Belgium waspro-Boer, and--well, she had heard a few things around the office.

Mitchell was getting "feed-box" information. When he left he knewthe names of his dangerous competitors as well as those whom, in alllikelihood, he had no cause to fear. Another step! He was gainingground.

In order to make himself absolutely certain that his figures would below, there still remained three things to learn, and they were mattersupon which he could afford to take no slightest chance of mistake.He must know, first, the dates of those other bids; second, themarket-price of English steel at such times; and, third, the cost offabrication at the various mills. The first two he believed couldbe easily learned, but the third promised to afford appallingdifficulties to a man unfamiliar with foreign methods and utterlylacking in trade acquaintances. He went at them systematically,however, only to run against a snag within the hour. Not only did hefail to find the answer to question number one, but he could find nomarket quotations whatever on structural steel shapes such as enteredinto the Krugersdorpf job.

He searched through every possible trade journal, through readingrooms and libraries, for the price of I-beams, channels, Z-bars, andthe like; but nowhere could he even find mention of them. His failureleft him puzzled and panic-stricken; he could not understand it. Ifonly he had more time, he reflected, time in which to learn the usagesand the customs of this country. But time was what he had not. He wastired, very tired from his sleepless nights and hours of daylightstrain--and meanwhile the days were rushing past.

While engaged in these side labors, he had, of course, been workingon his draftsmen friends, and more assiduously even than upon hisblue-prints. On Tuesday night, with but one more day of grace ahead ofhim, he gave a dinner to all of them, disregarding the fact that hisbank-roll had become frightfully emaciated.

For several days after that little party blue-printing in theRobinson-Ray office was a lost art. When his guests had dined and hadsettled back into their chairs, Mitchell decided to risk all upon onethrow. He rose, at the head of the table, and told them who he was. Heutterly destroyed their illusions regarding him and his position withComer & Mathison, he bared his heart to those stoop-shouldered, shabbyyoung men from Threadneedle Street and came right down to the ninehundred and twenty dollars and the girl. He told them whatthis Krugersdorpf job meant to him and to her, and to the fourtwenty-dollar bills in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

Those Englishmen listened silently. Nobody laughed. Perhaps it was thesort of thing they had dreamed of doing some day, perhaps there wereother girls in other tiny furnished flats, other hearts wrapped up insimilar struggles for advancement. They were good mathematicians, itseemed, for they did not have to ask Mitchell how the nine hundredand twenty was doing, or to inquire regarding the health of the othereighty. One of them, a near-sighted fellow with thick lenses, arosewith the grave assertion that he had taken the floor for the purposeof correcting a popular fallacy; Englishmen and Yankees, he declared,were not cousins, they were brothers, and their interests ever hadbeen and ever would be identical. He said, too, that England wantedto do business with America, and as for this particular contract, notonly did the British nation as a whole desire America to secure it,but the chaps who bent over the boards at No. 42-1/2 ThreadneedleStreet were plugging for her tooth and nail. His hollow-chestedcompanions yelled their approval of this statement, whereupon Mitchellagain arose, alternately flushing and paling, and apologized for whathad happened in 1776. He acknowledged himself ashamed of the 1812affair, moreover, and sympathized with his guests over their presenttrouble with the Boers. When he had finished they voted him the besthost and the best little cyanide tank-builder known to them--and theneverybody tried to tell him something at once.

They told him among other things that every bid except his had been infor two weeks, and that they were in the vault under the care of Mr.Pitts, the head draftsman. They promised to advise him if any new bidscame in or if any changes occurred, and, most important of all, theytold him that in England all structural steel shapes, instead of beingclassified as in America, are known as "angles," and they told himjust how and where to find the official reports giving the price ofthe same for every day in the year.

The word "angles" was the missing key, and those official marketreports formed the lock in which to fit it. Mitchell had taken severalmighty strides, and there remained but one more step to take.

When his guests had finally gone home, swearing fealty, and declaringthis to be the best dinner they had ever drunk, he hastened back tohis room, back to the desert of blueprints and to the interminablecolumns of figures, and over them he worked like a madman.

He slept two hours before daylight, then he was up and toiling again,for this was his last day. Using the data he had gathered the nightbefore, he soon had the price of English and Scottish steel at thetime the last bids were closed. Given one thing more--namely, the costof fabrication in these foreign shops, and he would have reduced thishazard to a certainty, he would be able to read the prices containedin those sealed bids as plainly as if they lay open before him. Buthis time had narrowed now to hours.

He lunched with John Pitts, the head draughtsman, going back to pickup the boomerang he had left the week before.

"Have you gone over my first bid?" he asked, carelessly.

"I have--lucky for you," said Pitts. "You made a mistake."

"Indeed! How so?"

"Why, it's thirty per cent. too low. It would be a crime to give youthe business at those figures."

"But, you see, I didn't include the sub-structure. I didn't have timeto figure that." Mitchell prayed that his face might not show hiseagerness. Evidently it did not, for Pitts walked into the trap.

"Even so," said he; "it's thirty per cent. out of the way. I madeallowance for that."

The boomerang had finished its flight!

Once they had separated, Mitchell broke for his hotel like ahunted man. He had made no mistake in his first figures. The greatKrugersdorpf job was his; but, nevertheless, he wished to make himselfabsolutely sure and to secure as much profit as possible for Comer& Mathison. Without a handsome profit this three-million-dollar jobmight ruin a firm of their standing.

In order to verify Pitts's statement, in order to swell his proposedprofits to the utmost, Mitchell knew he ought to learn the "overhead"in English mills; that is, the fixed charges which, added to shopcosts and prices of material, are set aside to cover office expenses,cost of operation, and contingencies. Without this informationhe would have to go it blind, after a fashion, and thereby riskpenalizing himself; with it he could estimate very closely the amountsof the other bids and insure a safe margin for Comer & Mathison. Inaddition to this precaution he wished to have his own figures checkedup, for even under normal conditions, if one makes a numerical errorin work of this sort, he is more than apt to repeat it time and again,and Mitchell knew himself to be deadly tired--almost on the vergeof collapse. He was inclined to doze off whenever he sat down; theraucous noises of the city no longer jarred or startled him, and hissurroundings were becoming unreal, grotesque, as if seen through thespell of absinthe. Yes, it was necessary to check off his figures.

But who could he get to do the work? He could not go to ThreadneedleStreet. He thought of the Carnegie representative and telephoned him,explaining the situation and his crying need, only to be told thatno one in that office was capable of assisting him. He was referred,however, to an English engineer who, it was barely possible, couldhandle the job. In closing, the Carnegie man voiced a vague warning:

"His name is Dell, and he used to be with one of the Edinburghconcerns, so don't let him know your inside figures. He might spring aleak."

A half-hour later Mitchell, his arms full of blue-prints, was in Mr.Dell's office. But the English engineer hesitated; he was very busy;he had numerous obligations. Mitchell gazed over the threadbare roomsand hastily estimated how much of the nine hundred and twenty dollarswould be left after he had paid his hotel bill. What there was to domust be done before the next morning's sun arose.

"This job is worth ten sovereigns to me if it is finished tonight," hedeclared, briskly.

He unrolled the blue-prints, from a drawer he produced a sliding-rule.He slid this rule up; he slid it down; he gazed through his glassesat space; he made microscopic Spencerian figures in neat rows andcolumns. He seemed to pluck his results from the air with necromanticcunning, and what had taken the young man at his elbow days and nightsof cruel effort to accomplish--what had put haggard lines about hismouth and eyes--the engineer accomplished in a few hours by meansof that sliding-rule. Meanwhile, with one weary effort of will, hisvisitor summoned his powers and cross-examined him adroitly. Here wasthe very man to supply the one missing link in the perfect chain;but Mr. Dell would not talk. He did not like Americans nor Americanmethods, and he made his dislike apparent by sealing his lips.Mitchell played upon his vanity at first, only to find the man whollylacking in conceit. Changing his method of attack, Mitchell built afire under Mr. Dell. He grilled everything British, the people, theirsocial customs, their business methods, even English engineers, andhe did it in a most annoying manner. Mr. Dell began to perspire.He worked doggedly on for a while, then he arose in defense of hiscountry, whereupon Mitchell artfully shifted his attack to Englishsteel-mills. The other refuted his statements flatly. At length theengineer was goaded to anger, he became disputative, indignant,loquacious.

When Louis Mitchell flung himself into the dark body of his cab,late that evening, and sank his legs knee-deep into those hatefulblue-prints, he blessed that engineer, for Dell had told him all hewished to know, all he had tried so vainly to discover through othersources. The average "overhead" in British mills was one hundred andthirty per cent., and Dell _knew_.

The young man laughed hysterically, triumphantly, but the sound wasmore like a tearful hiccough. To-morrow at ten-thirty! It was nearlyover. He would be ready. As he lolled back inertly upon the cushionshe mused dreamily that he had done well. In less than two weeks, in aforeign country, and under strange conditions, without acquaintance orpull or help of any sort, he had learned the names of his competitivefirms, the dates of their bids, and the market prices ruling on everypiece of steel in the Krugersdorpf job when those bids were figured.He had learned the rules governing English labor unions; he knew allabout piece-work and time-work, fixed charges and shop costs, togetherwith the ability of every plant figuring on the Robinson-Ray contractto turn out the work in the necessary time. All this, and more, hehad learned legitimately and without cost to his commercial honor.Henceforth that South-African contract depended merely upon his ownability to add, subtract, and multiply correctly. It was his just assurely as two and two make four--for salesmanship is an exact science.

The girl would be very happy, he told himself. He was glad that shecould never know the strain it had been.

Again, through the slow, silent hours of that Wednesday night,Mitchell fought the fatigue of death, going over his figurescarefully. There were no errors in them.

Dawn was creeping in on him when he added a clean thirty-per-cent.profit for his firm, signed his bid, and prepared for bed. But hefound that he could not leave the thing. After he had turned in hebecame assailed by sudden doubts and fears. What if he had made amistake after all? What if some link in his chain were faulty? What ifsome other bidder had made a mistake and underfigured? Such thoughtsmade him tremble. Now that it was all done, he feared that he had beenoverconfident, for could it really be possible that the greatest steelcontract in years would come to him? He grew dizzy at the picture ofwhat it meant to him and to the girl.

He calmed himself finally and looked straight at the matter, sittingup in bed, his knees drawn up under his chin. While so engaged hecaught sight of his drawn face in the mirror opposite and startedwhen he realized how old and heavy with fatigue it was. He determinedsuddenly to shave that profit to twenty-nine per cent. and makeassurance doubly sure, but managed to conquer his momentary panic.Cold reasoning told him that his figures were safe.

Louis Mitchell was the only salesman in Mr. Peebleby's office thatmorning who did not wear a silk hat, pearl gloves, and spats. Inconsequence the others ignored him for a time--but only for a time.Once the proposals had been read, an air of impenetrable gloom spreadover the room. The seven Scotch, English, and Belgian mourners staredcheerlessly at one another and then with growing curiosity at theyoung man from overseas who had underbid the lowest of them by sixthousand pounds sterling, less than one per cent. After a while theybowed among themselves, mumbled something to Mr. Peebleby, andwent softly out in their high hats, their pearl gloves, and theirspats--more like pall-bearers now than ever.

The Director General of the Robinson-Ray Syndicate stared in openamazement, but Mitchell hitched his chair closer, saying:

"Now let's get at those signatures. I've got to pack."

That night Louis Mitchell slept with fifteen separate contracts underhis pillow. He double-locked the door, pulled the dresser in front ofit, and left the light burning. At times he awoke with a start andfelt for the documents. Toward morning he was seized with a suddenfright, so he got up and read them all over for fear somebody hadtampered with them. They were correct, however, whereupon he read thema second time just for pleasure. They were strangely interesting.

On the _Deutschland_ he slept much of the way across, and by thetime Liberty Statue loomed up he could dream of other things thanblue-prints--of the girl, for instance.

She had enough left from the eighty dollars to bring her to New Yorkand to pay for a week's lodging in West Thirty-fourth Street, thoughhow she managed it Mitchell never knew. She was at the dock, ofcourse. He knew she would be. He expected to see her with her armsoutstretched and with the old joyous smile upon her dimpled face, and,therefore, he was sorely disappointed when he came down the gang-plankand she did not appear. He searched high and low until finally hediscovered her seated over by the letter "M," where his trunk waswaiting inspection. There she was, huddled up on a coil of rope,crying as if her heart would break; her nerve was gone, along with thefour twenty-dollar bills; she was afraid to face him, afraid there hadbeen an error in his cablegram.

Not until she lay in his arms at last, sobbing and laughing, herslender body all aquiver, did she believe. Then he allowed her to feelthe fifteen contracts inside his coat. Later, when they were in a cabbound for her smelly little boarding-house, he showed them to her. Inreturn she gave him a telegram from his firm--a telegram addressed asfollows:

Mr. LOUIS MITCHELL,

General Sales Manager, Comer & Mathison, New York City.

The message read:

That goes. COMER.

Mitchell opened the trap above his head and called up to the driver:"Hey, Cabbie! We've changed our minds. Drive us to the Waldorf--at agallop."

WITH INTEREST TO DATE

This is the tale of a wrong that rankled and a great revenge. It isnot a moral story, nor yet, measured by the modern money code, is itwhat could be called immoral. It is merely a tale of sharp witswhich clashed in pursuit of business, therefore let it be consideredunmoral, a word with a wholly different commercial significance.

Time was when wrongs were righted by mace and battle-ax, amid fanfaresand shoutings, but we live in a quieter age, an age of repression,wherein the keenest thrust is not delivered with a yell of triumph northe oldest score settled to the blare of trumpets. No longer do themen of great muscle lord it over the weak and the puny; as a rulethey toil and they lift, doing unpleasant, menial duties forhollow-chested, big-domed men with eye-glasses. But among those veryspindle-shanked, terra-cotta dwellers who cower at draughts and eatsoda mints, the ancient struggle for supremacy wages fiercer thanever. Single combats are fought now as then, and the flavor of victoryis quite as sweet to the pallid man back of a roll-top desk as to theswart, bristling baron behind his vizored helmet.

The beginning of this story runs back to the time Henry Hanford wentwith the General Equipment Company as a young salesman full of hopeand enthusiasm and a somewhat exaggerated idea of his own importance.He was selling shears, punches, and other machinery used in thefabrication of structural steel. In the territory assigned to him, theworks of the Atlantic Bridge Company stuck up like a sore thumb, foralthough it employed many men, although its contracts were large andits requirements numerous, the General Equipment Company had neversold it a dollar's worth of anything.

In the course of time Hanford convinced himself that the AtlanticBridge Company needed more modern machinery, so he laid siege toJackson Wylie, Sr., its president and practical owner. He spent all ofsix months in gaining the old man's ear, but when he succeeded helaid himself out to sell his goods. He analyzed the Atlantic BridgeCompany's needs in the light of modern milling practice, anddemonstrated the saving his equipment would effect. A big order andmuch prestige were at stake, both of which young Hanford neededbadly at the time. He was vastly encouraged, therefore, when thebridge-builder listened attentively to him.

"I dare say we shall have to make a change," Mr. Wylie reluctantlyagreed. "I've been bothered to death by machinery salesmen, but you'rethe first one to really interest me."

Hanford acknowledged the compliment and proceeded further to elaborateupon the superiority of the General Equipment Company's goods overthose sold by rival concerns. When he left he felt that he had Mr.Wylie, Sr., "going."

At the office they warned him that he had a hard nut to crack; thatWylie was given to "stringing" salesmen and was a hard man to closewith, but Hanford smiled confidently. Granting those facts, theyrendered him all the more eager to make this sale; and the bridgecompany really did need up-to-date machinery.

He instituted an even more vigorous selling campaign, he sent muchprinted matter to Mr. Wylie, Sr., he wrote him many letters. Being athoroughgoing young saleman, he studied the plant from the ground up,learning the bridge business in such detail as enabled him to talkwith authority on efficiency methods. In the course of his studies hediscovered many things that were wrong with the Atlantic, and spentdays in outlining improvements on paper. He made the acquaintance ofthe foremen; he cultivated the General Superintendent; he even met Mr.Jackson Wylie, Jr., the Sales Manager, a very polished, metallic youngman, who seemed quite as deeply impressed with Hanford's statements asdid his father.

Under our highly developed competitive system, modern business is donevery largely upon personality. From the attitude of both father andson, Hanford began to count his chickens. Instead of letting up,however, he redoubled his efforts, which was his way. He spent so muchtime on the matter that his other work suffered, and in consequencehis firm called him down. He outlined his progress with the AtlanticBridge Company, declared he was going to succeed, and continued tocamp with the job, notwithstanding the firm's open doubts.

Sixty days after his first interview he had another visit with Wylie,senior, during which the latter drained him of information and made anappointment for a month later. Said Mr. Wylie:

"You impress me strongly, Hanford, and I want my associates to hearyou. Get your proposition into shape and make the same talk to themthat you have made to me."

Hanford went away elated; he even bragged a bit at the office, and thereport got around among the other salesmen that he really had done theimpossible and had pulled off something big with the Atlantic. It wasa busy month for that young gentleman, and when the red-letter day atlast arrived he went on to Newark to find both Wylies awaiting him.

"Well, sir, are you prepared to make a good argument?" the fatherinquired.

"I am." Hanford decided that three months was not too long a time todevote to work of this magnitude, after all.

"I want you to do your best," the bridge-builder continued,encouragingly, then he led Hanford into the directors' room, where, tohis visitor's astonishment, some fifty men were seated.

"These are our salesmen," announced Mr. Wylie. He introduced Hanfordto them with the request that they listen attentively to what theyoung man had to say.

It was rather nervous work for Hanford, but he soon warmed up andforgot his embarrassment. He stood on his feet for two long hourspleading as if for his life. He went over the Atlantic plant from endto end; he showed the economic necessity for new machinery; then heexplained the efficiency of his own appliances. He took rival typesand picked them to pieces, pointing out their inferiority. He showedhis familiarity with bridge work by going into figures which bore outhis contention that the Atlantic's output could be increased and atan actual monthly saving. He wound up by proving that the GeneralEquipment Company was the one concern best fitted to effect theimprovement.

It had taken months of unremitting toil to prepare himself for thisexposition, but the young fellow felt he had made his case. When hetook up the cost of the proposed instalment, however, Mr. JacksonWylie, Sr., interrupted him.

"That is all I care to have you cover," the latter explained. "Thankyou very kindly, Mr. Hanford."

Hanford sat down and wiped his forehead, whereupon the other steppedforward and addressed his employees.

"Gentlemen," said he, "you have just listened to the best argument Iever heard. I purposely called you in from the road so that you mighthave a practical lesson in salesmanship and learn something from anoutsider about your own business. I want you to profit by this talk.Take it to heart and apply it to your own customers. Our sellingefficiency has deteriorated lately; you are getting lazy. I want youto wake up and show better results. That is all. You might thank thisyoung gentleman for his kindness."

When the audience had dispersed, Hanford inquired, blankly, "Don't youintend to act on my suggestions?"

"Oh no!" said Mr. Wylie, in apparent surprise. "We are doing nicely,as it is. I merely wanted you to address the boys."

"But--I've spent three months of hard labor on this! You led me tobelieve that you would put in new equipment."

Six months later the Atlantic Bridge Company placed a mammoth orderwith Hanford's rival concern, and he was not even asked to figure onit.

That is how the seeds of this story were sown. Of course the facts gotout, for those Atlantic salesmen were not wanting in a sense of humor,and Hanford was joshed in every quarter. To make matters worse,his firm called him to account for his wasted time, implying thatsomething was evidently wrong with his selling methods. Thus began alack of confidence which quickly developed into strained relations.The result was inevitable; Hanford saw what was coming and was wiseenough to resign his position.

But it was the ridicule that hurt him most. He was unable to getaway from that. Had he been at all emotional, he would have sworn avendetta, so deep and lasting was the hurt, but he did not; he merelyfailed to forget, which, after all, is not so different.

It seemed queer that Henry Hanford should wind up in the bridgebusiness himself, after attempting to fill several unsatisfactorypositions, and yet there was nothing remarkable about it, for thatthree months of intense application at the Atlantic plant had givenhim a groundwork which came in handy when the Patterson Bridge Companyoffered him a desk. He was a good salesman; he worked hard and intime he was promoted. By and by the story was forgotten--by everyone except Henry Hanford. But he had lost a considerable number ofprecious years.

* * * * *

When it became known that the English and Continental structuralshops were so full of work that they could not figure on the mammothfive-million-dollar steel structure designed to span the Barrata Riverin Africa, and when the Royal Commission in London finally advertisedbroadcast that time was the essence of this contract, Mr. JacksonWylie, Sr., realized that his plant was equipped to handle the job inmagnificent shape, with large profit to himself and with great renownto the Wylie name. He therefore sent his son, Jackson Wylie, theSecond, now a full-fledged partner, to London armed with letters toalmost everybody in England from almost everybody in America.

Two weeks later--the Patterson Bridge Company was not so aggressiveas its more pretentious rival--Henry Hanford went abroad on the samemission, but he carried no letters of introduction for the very goodreason that he possessed neither commercial influence nor socialprestige. Bradstreets had never rated him, and _Who's Who_ containedno names with which he was familiar.

Jackson Wylie, the Second had been to London frequently, and he wasaccustomed to English life. He had friends with headquarters atPrince's and at Romano's, friends who were delighted to entertain soprominent an American; his letters gave him the entree to many of thebest clubs and paved his way socially wherever he chose to go.

It was Hanford's first trip across, and he arrived on British soilwithout so much as a knowledge of English coins, with nothing inthe way of baggage except a grip full of blue-prints, and with nodestination except the Parliament buildings, where he had been ledto believe the Royal Barrata Bridge Commission was eagerly andimpatiently awaiting his coming. But when he called at the Parliamentbuildings he failed not only to find the Commission, but even toencounter anybody who knew anything about it. He did manage to locatethe office, after some patient effort, but learned that it was nothingmore than a forwarding address, and that no member of the Commissionhad been there for several weeks. He was informed that the Commissionhad convened once, and therefore was not entirely an imaginary body;beyond that he could discover nothing. On his second visit to theoffice he was told that Sir Thomas Drummond, the chairman, was inside,having run down from his shooting-lodge in Scotland for the day. ButSir Thomas's clerk, with whom Hanford had become acquainted at thetime of his first call, informed him that Mr. Jackson Wylie, theSecond, from America, was closeted with his lordship, and inconsequence his lordship could not be disturbed. Later, when Hanfordgot more thoroughly in touch with the general situation, he began torealize that introductions, influence, social prestige would in allprobability go farther toward landing the Barrata Bridge than mereengineering, ability or close figuring--facts with which the youngerWylie was already familiar, and against which he had provided. It alsobecame plain to Hanford as time went on that the contract would ofnecessity go to America, for none of the European shops were inposition to complete it on time.

Owing to government needs, this huge, eleven-span structure had to beon the ground within ninety days from the date of the signing of thecontract, and erected within eight months thereafter. The Commission'sclerk, a big, red-faced, jovial fellow, informed Hanford that pricewas not nearly so essential as time of delivery; that although thecontract glittered with alluring bonuses and was heavily weightedwith forfeits, neither bonuses nor forfeitures could in the slightestmanner compensate for a delay in time. It was due to this very fact,to the peculiar urgency of the occasion, that the Commissioners wereinclined to look askance at prospective bidders who might in any wayfail to complete the task as specified.

"If all that is true, tell me why Wylie gets the call?" Hanfordinquired.

"I understand he has the very highest references," said theEnglishman.

"No doubt. But you can't build bridges with letters of introduction,even in Africa."

"Probably not. But Sir Thomas is a big man; Mr. Wylie is one of hissort. They meet on common ground, don't you see?"

"Well, if I can't arrange an interview with any member of theCommission, I can at least take you to lunch. Will you go?"

The clerk declared that he would, indeed, and in the days thatfollowed the two saw much of each other. This fellow, Lowe by name,interested Hanford. He was a cosmopolite; he was polished to thehardness of agate by a life spent in many lands. He possessed a coldeye and a firm chin; he was a complex mixture of daredeviltry andmeekness. He had fought in a war or two, and he had led hopes quiteas forlorn as the one Hanford was now engaged upon. It was this bond,perhaps, which drew the two together.

In spite of Lowe's assistance Hanford found it extremely difficult,nay, almost impossible, to obtain any real inside informationconcerning the Barrata Bridge; wherever he turned he brought upagainst a blank wall of English impassiveness: he even experienceddifficulty in securing the blue-prints he wanted.

"It looks pretty tough for you," Lowe told him one day. "I'm afraidyou're going to come a cropper, old man. This chap Wylie has the railand he's running well. He has opened an office, I believe."

"So I understand. Well, the race isn't over yet, and I'm a goodstayer. This is the biggest thing I ever tackled and it means a lot tome--more than you imagine."

"How so?"

Hanford recited the story of his old wrong, to Lowe's frank amazement.

"What a rotten trick!" the latter remarked.

"Yes! And--I don't forget."

"You'd better forget this job. It takes pull to get consideration frompeople like Sir Thomas, and Wylie has more than he needs. A fellowwithout it hasn't a chance. Look at me, for instance, working at adesk! Bah!"

"Oh, the chance will come. Chances always come; sometimes we don't seethem, that's all. When this one comes I want to be ready. Meanwhile, Ithink I'll reconnoiter Wylie's new office and find out what's doing."

Day after day Henry Hanford pursued his work doggedly, seeing much ofLowe, something of Wylie's clerk, and nothing whatever of Sir ThomasDrummond or the other members of the Royal Barrata Bridge Commission.He heard occasional rumors of the social triumphs of his rival,and met him once, to be treated with half-veiled amusement by thatpatronizing young man. Meanwhile, the time was growing short andHanford's firm was not well pleased with his progress.

Then the chance came, unexpectedly, as Hanford had declared chancesalways come. The remarkable thing in this instance was not that theveiled goddess showed her face, but that Hanford was quick enoughto recognize her and bold enough to act. He had taken Lowe to theTrocadero for dinner, and, finding no seats where they could watch thecrowd, he had selected a stall in a quiet corner. They had been therebut a short time when Hanford recognized a voice from the stalladjacent as belonging to the representative of the Atlantic BridgeCompany. From the sounds he could tell that Wylie was giving adinner-party, and with Lowe's aid he soon identified the guests asmembers of the Royal Barrata Bridge Commission. Hanford began tostrain his ears.

As the meal progressed this became less of an effort, for youngWylie's voice was strident. The Wylie conversation had ever beenlimited largely to the Wylies, their accomplishments, their purposes,and their prospects; and now having the floor as host, he talkedmainly about himself, his father, and their forthcoming Barrata Bridgecontract. It was his evident endeavor this evening to impress hisdistinguished guests with the tremendous importance of the AtlanticBridge Company and its unsurpassed facilities for handling big jobs.A large part of young Wylie's experience had been acquired bymanipulating municipal contracts and the aldermen connected therewith;he now worked along similar lines. Hanford soon learned that he wastrying in every way possible to induce Drummond and his associatesto accompany him back to America for the purpose of provingbeyond peradventure that the Atlantic could take care of afive-million-dollar contract with ease.

The Englishman was alert, his dramatic instinct was at play;recognizing the significance of Wylie's offer and its possible bearingupon Hanford's fortunes, he waved the waiter away, knowing better thanto permit the rattle of dishes to distract his host's attention.

Meanwhile, with clenched teeth and smoldering eyes Henry Hanford heardhis rival in the next compartment identify the State of New Jersey bythe fact that the works of the Atlantic Bridge Company were locatedtherein, and dignify it by the fact that the Jackson Wylies livedthere.

"You know, gentlemen," Wylie was saying, "I can arrange the tripwithout the least difficulty, and I assure you there will be nodiscomfort. I am in constant cipher communication with my father, andhe will be delighted to afford you every courtesy. I can fix it up bycable in a day."

Hanford arose with a silent gesture to his guest, then, although themeal was but half over, he paid the bill. He had closed his campaign.Right then and there he landed the great Barrata Bridge contract.

Lowe, mystified beyond measure by his friend's action, made no commentuntil they were outside. Then he exclaimed:

"I say, old top, what blew off?"

Hanford smiled at him queerly. "The whole top of young Wylie's headblew off, if he only knew it. It's my day to settle that score, andthe interest will be compounded."

"But what makes you so positive you can handle his clerk?" queriedLowe.

"Oh, I've studied him the same way I've studied you! I've been doingnothing else for the last month."

"Bli' me, you're a corker!" said Mr. Lowe.

* * * * *

Back in Newark, New Jersey, Jackson Wylie, Sr., was growing impatient.In spite of his son's weekly reports he had begun to fret at theindefinite nature of results up to date. This dissatisfaction it wasthat had induced him to cable his invitation to the Royal Commissionto visit the Atlantic plant. Mr. Jackson Wylie, Sr., had a mysteriousway of closing contracts once he came in personal contact with theproper people. In the words of his envious competitors, he had "goodterminal facilities," and he felt sure in his own mind that he couldget this job if only he could meet some member of that Commission whopossessed the power to act. Business was bad, and in view of his son'spreliminary reports he had relied upon the certainty of securing thistremendous contract; he had even turned work away so that his plantmight be ready for the rush, with the result that many of his men nowwere idle and that he was running far below capacity. But he likewisehad his eye upon those English bonuses, and when his associates rathertimidly called his attention to the present state of affairs heassured them bitingly that he knew his business. Nevertheless, hecould not help chafing at delay nor longing for the time to come tosubmit the bid that had lain for a month upon his desk. The magnitudeof the figures contained therein was getting on Mr. Wylie's nerves.

On the tenth of May he received a cablegram in his own official cipherwhich, translated, read:

The cablegram was unsigned, but its address, "Atwylie," betrayed notonly its destination, but also the identity of its sender. Mr. JacksonWylie, Sr., became tremendously excited. The last word conjured upbewildering possibilities. He was about to consult his associates whenit struck him that the greatest caution he could possibly observewould consist of holding his own tongue now and henceforth. They hadseen fit to criticize his handling of the matter thus far; he decidedhe would play safe and say nothing until he had first seen Sir ThomasDrummond and learned the lay of the land. He imagined he might thenhave something electrifying to tell them. He had "dealt from thebottom" too often, he had closed too many bridge contracts in histime, to mistake the meaning of this visit, or of that last word"caution."

During the next few days Mr. Jackson Wylie, Sr., had hard work to holdhimself in, and he was at a high state of nervous tension when, onthe morning of the fourteenth day of May, he strolled into theWaldorf-Astoria and inquired at the desk for Sir Thomas Drummond.

There was no Sir Thomas stopping at the hotel, although a Mr. T.Drummond from London had arrived on the _Campania_ the day before. Mr.Jackson Wylie placed the heel of his right shoe upon the favorite cornof his left foot and bore down upon it heavily. He must begetting into his dotage, he reflected, or else the idea of afive-million-dollar job had him rattled. Of course Sir Thomas wouldnot use his title.

At the rear desk he had his card blown up through the tube to "Mr. T.Drummond," and a few moments later was invited to take the elevator.

Arriving at the sixth floor, he needed no page to guide him; bootspointed his way to the apartment of the distinguished visitor as plainlyas a lettered sign-board; boots of all descriptions--hunting-boots,riding-boots, street shoes, lowshoes, pumps, sandals--black ones and tanones--all in a row outside the door. It was a typically English display.Evidently Sir Thomas Drummond was a personage of the most extremeimportance and traveled in befitting style, Mr. Wylie told himself.Nothing was missing from the collection, unless perhaps a pair of rubberhip-boots.

A stoop-shouldered old man with a marked accent and a port-wine noseshowed Mr. Wylie into a parlor where the first object upon whichhis active eyes alighted was a mass of blue-prints. He knew thesedrawings; he had figured on them himself. He likewise noted a hat-boxand a great, shapeless English bag, both plastered crazily with hoteland steamship labels hailing from every quarter of the world. It wasplain to be seen that Sir Thomas was a globe-trotter.

"Mr. Drummond begs you to be seated," the valet announced, with whatseemed an unnecessary accent on the "mister," then moved silently out.

Mr. Wylie remarked to himself upon the value of discreet servants.They were very valuable; very hard to get in America. This must besome lifelong servitor in his lordship's family.

There was no occasion to inquire the identity of the tall, floridEnglishman in tweeds who entered a moment later, a bundle of estimatesin his hand. "Sir Thomas Drummond, Chairman of the Royal BarrataBridge Commission," was written all over him in large type.

His lordship did not go to the trouble of welcoming his visitor, butscanned him frigidly through his glasses.

"You are Mr. Jackson Wylie, Senior?" he demanded, abruptly.

"That is my name."

"President of the Atlantic Bridge Company, of Newark, New Jersey?"

"The same."

"You received a cablegram from your son in London?"

"Yes, your lordship."

Sir Thomas made a gesture as if to forego the title. "Let me see it,please."

Mr. Wylie produced the cablegram, and Drummond scanned it sharply.Evidently the identification was complete.

"Does any one besides your son and yourself know the contents of thismessage?"

"Not a soul."

"You have not told any one of my coming?"

"No, sir!"

"Very well." Sir Thomas appeared to breathe easier; he deliberatelytore the cablegram into small bits, then tossed the fragments intoa wastepaper basket before waving his caller to a chair. He stillremained very cold, very forceful, although his stiff formality hadvanished.

"Do you understand all about this bridge?" he inquired.

Wylie senior took the cue of brusqueness and nodded shortly.

"Can you build it in the time specified?"

"With ease."

"Have you submitted your bid?"

"Not yet. I--"

"What is the amount of your proposal?"

The president of the Atlantic Bridge Company gasped. This was theboldest, the coldest work he had ever experienced. Many times he hadwitnessed public officials like Sir Thomas Drummond approach thisdelicate point, but never with such composure, such matter-of-factcertainty and lack of moral scruple. Evidently, however, thisEnglishman had come to trade and wanted a direct answer. There was nofalse pose, no romance here. But Jackson Wylie, Sr., was too shrewd abusiness man to name a rock-bottom price to begin with. The trainingof a lifetime would not permit him to deny himself a liberal leewayfor hedging, therefore he replied, cautiously:

"My figures will be approximately L1,400,000 sterling." It was hislongest speech thus far.

For what seemed an hour to the bridge-builder Sir Thomas Drummondgazed at him with a cold, hard eye, then he folded his papers,rolled up his blue-prints, placed them in the big traveling-bag, andcarefully locked it. When he had finished he flung out this questionsuddenly:

"Does that include the Commissioners?"

Up to this point Mr. Jackson Wylie had spoken mainly in monosyllables;now he quit talking altogether; it was no longer necessary. He merelyshook his head in negation. He was smiling slightly.

"Then I shall ask you to add L200,000 sterling to your price," hislordship calmly announced. "Make your bid L1,600,000 sterling, andmail it in time for Wednesday's boat. I sail on the same ship.Proposals will be opened on the twenty-fifth. Arrange for an Englishindemnity bond for ten per cent. of your proposition. Do notcommunicate in any manner whatsoever with your son, except to forwardthe sealed bid to him. He is not to know of our arrangement. You willmeet me in London later; we will take care of that L200,000 out of thelast forty per cent. of the contract price, which is payable thirtydays after completion, inspection, and acceptance of the bridge. Youwill not consult your associates upon leaving here. Do I make myselfclear? Very well, sir. The figures are easy to remember: L1,600,000;L1,400,000 to you. I am pleased with the facilities your plant offersfor doing the work. I am confident you can complete the bridge ontime, and I beg leave to wish you a very pleasant good day."

Jackson Wylie, Sr., did not really come to until he had reachedthe street; even then he did not know whether he had come down theelevator or through the mail-chute. Of one thing only was he certain:he was due to retire in favor of his son. He told himself thathe needed a trip through the Holy Land with a guardian and anursing-bottle; then he paused on the curb and stamped on his corn fora second time.

"Oh, what an idiot I am!" he cried, savagely. "I could havegotten L1,600,000 to start with, but--by gad, Sir Thomas is thecoldest-blooded thing I ever went against! I--I can't help but admirehim."

Having shown a deplorable lack of foresight, Mr. Wylie determined tomake up for it by an ample display of hindsight. If the profits on thejob were not to be so large as they might have been, he would atleast make certain of them by obeying instructions to the letter. Inaccordance with this determination, he made out the bid himself, andhe mailed it with his own hand that very afternoon. He put three bluestamps on the envelope, although it required but two. Then he calledup an automobile agency and ordered a foreign town-car his wife hadadmired. He decided that she and the girls might go to Paris for thefall shopping--he might even go with them, in view of that morning'sepisode.

For ten days he stood the pressure, then on the morning of thetwenty-fourth he called his _confreres_ into the directors' room, thatsame room in which young Hanford had made his talk a number of yearsbefore. Inasmuch as it was too late now for a disclosure to affect theopening of the bids in London, he felt absolved from his promise toSir Thomas.

"Gentlemen, I have the honor to inform you," he began, pompously,"that the Barrata Bridge is ours! We have the greatest structuralsteel job of the decade." His chest swelled with justifiable pride.

"How? When? What do you mean?" they cried.

He told them of his mysterious but fruitful interview at the Waldorften days previously, enjoying their expressions of amazement to thefull; then he explained in considerable detail the difficulties he hadsurmounted in securing such liberal figures from Sir Thomas.

"We were ready to take the contract for L1,300,000, as you willremember, but by the exercise of some diplomacy"--he coughedmodestly--"I may say, by the display of some firmness andindependence, I succeeded in securing a clean profit of $500,000 overwhat we had expected." He accepted, with becoming diffidence, thecongratulations which were showered upon him. Of course, the newscreated a sensation, but it was as nothing to the sensation thatfollowed upon the receipt of a cablegram the next day which read:

ATWYLIE,

Newark, New Jersey.

Terrible mistake somewhere. We lost. Am coming home to-day.

Mr. Jackson Wylie, Sr., also went home that day--by carriage, for,after raving wildly of treachery, after cursing the name of someEnglish nobleman, unknown to most of the office force, he collapsed,throwing his employees into much confusion. There were rumors ofan apoplectic stroke; some one telephoned for a physician; but thepresident of the Atlantic Bridge Company only howled at the latterwhen he arrived.

What hit the old man hardest was the fact that he could not explain tohis associates--that he could not even explain to himself, for thatmatter. He could make neither head nor tail of the affair; his son wason the high seas and could not be reached; the mystery of the wholetransaction threatened to unseat his reason. Even when his sorrowingheir arrived, a week after the shock, the father could gather nothingat first except the bare details.

All he could learn was that the Royal Barrata Bridge Commissionhad met on the twenty-fifth day of May, for the second time in itshistory, with Sir Thomas Drummond in the chair. In the midst of anultra-British solemnity the bids had been opened and read--nine ofthem--two Belgian, one German, two French, one English, one Scottish,and two American.

The only proposals that conformed to the specifications in everyrespect were the last named. They were perfect. The Atlantic BridgeCompany, of Newark, New Jersey, offered to do the work as specifiedfor L1,600,000 sterling. The Patterson Bridge Company, through itsauthorized agent, Mr. Henry Hanford, named a price of L1,550,000. Therest was but a matter of detail.

Having concluded this bald recital, Jackson Wylie, the Second, spreadhis hands in a gesture of despair. "I can't understand it," he said,dolefully. "I thought I had it cinched all the time."

"_You_ had it cinched!" bellowed his father. "_You_! Why, you ruinedit all! Why in hell did you send him over here?"

"I? Send who? What are you talking about?"

"That man with the boots! That lying, thieving scoundrel, Sir ThomasDrummond, of course."

The younger Wylie's face showed blank, uncomprehending amazement. "SirThomas Drummond was in London all the time I was there. I saw himdaily," said he.

Not until this very moment did the president of the Atlantic BridgeCompany comprehend the trap he had walked into, but now the wholehideous business became apparent. He had been fooled, swindled, and ina way to render recourse impossible; nay, in a manner to blacken hisreputation if the story became public. He fell actually ill from thepassion of his rage and not even a long rest from the worries ofbusiness completely cured him. The bitter taste of defeat would notdown. He might never have understood the matter thoroughly had it notbeen for a missive he received one day through the mail. It was a billfrom a London shoe-store for twelve pairs of boots, of varying styles,made out to Henry Hanford, and marked "paid."

Mr. Jackson Wylie, Sr., noted with unspeakable chagrin that the lastword was heavily under-scored in ink, as if by another hand. Hanford'sbill was indeed paid, and with interest to date.

THE CUB REPORTER

Why he chose Buffalo Paul Anderson never knew, unless perhaps ithad more newspapers than Bay City, Michigan, and because his ticketexpired in the vicinity of Buffalo. For that matter, why he shouldhave given up an easy job as the mate of a tugboat to enter thetortuous paths of journalism the young man did not know, and, lackingthe introspective faculty, he did not stop to analyze his motives. Sofar as he could discover he had felt the call to higher endeavor, andjust naturally had heeded it. Such things as practical experience andeducational equipment were but empty words to him, for he was youngand hopeful, and the world is kind at twenty-one.

He had hoped to enter his chosen field with some financial backing,and to that end, when the desire to try his hand at literature hadstruck him, he had bought an interest in a smoke-consumer which afireman on another tugboat had patented. In partnership with theinventor he had installed one of the devices beneath a sawmill boileras an experiment. Although the thing consumed smoke surprisingly well,it likewise unharnessed such an amazing army of heat-units that itmelted the crown-sheet of the boiler; whereupon the sawmill men, beingsingularly coarse and unimaginative fellows, set upon the patentee andhis partner with ash-rakes, draw-bars, and other ordinary, unpatentedimplements; a lumberjack beat hollowly upon their ribs with a peavy,and that night young Anderson sickened of smoke-consumers, harked anewto the call of journalism, and hiked, arriving in Buffalo with sevendollars and fifty cents to the good.

For seven dollars, counted out in advance, he chartered a furnishedroom for a week, the same carrying with it a meal at each end of theday, which left in Anderson's possession a superfluity of fifty centsto be spent in any extravagance he might choose.

Next day he bought a copy of each newspaper and, carefully scanningthem, selected the one upon which to bestow his reportorial gifts.This done, he weighed anchor and steamed through the town in search ofthe office. Walking in upon the city editor of _The Intelligencer_, hegazed with benevolent approval upon that busy gentleman's broad back.He liked the place, the office suited him, and he decided to have hisdesk placed over by the window.

After a time the editor wheeled, displaying a young, smooth, fat face,out of which peered gray-blue eyes with pin-point pupils.

"Well?" he queried.

"Here I am," said Anderson.

"So it appears. What do you want?"

"Work."

"What kind?"

"Newspapering."

"What can you do?"

"Anything."

"Well, well!" cried the editor. "You don't look much like a newspaperman."

"No," said Paul; "I've never written any plays yet, but I'm goingto. That's why I want to sort of begin here and get the hang of thiswriting game."

A boy entered with some proofs at that moment and tossed them uponthe table, distracting the attention of the newspaper man. The latterwheeled back to his work and spoke curtly over his shoulder.

"I'm not running a school of journalism. Good-by."

"Maybe you'd like me to do a little space work--?"

"I'd never like you. Get out. I'm busy."

Anderson retired gracefully, jingling his scanty handful of nickelsand dimes, and a half-hour later thrust himself boldly in upon anothereditor, but with no better result. He made the rounds of all theoffices; although invariably rebuffed he became more firmly convincedthan ever that journalism was his designated sphere.

That night after dinner he retired to his room with the eveningpapers, wedged a chair against his bed, and, hoisting his feet uponthe wash-stand, absorbed the news of the day. It was ineffably sweetand satisfying to be thus identified with the profession of letters,and it was immeasurably more dignified than "tugging" on the SaginawRiver. Once he had schooled himself in the tricks of writing, hedecided he would step to higher things than newspaper work, but forthe present it was well to ground himself firmly in the rudiments ofthe craft.

In going through the papers he noted one topic which interested him, a"similar mystery" story on the second page. From what he could gather,he judged that much space had already been given to it; for now,inasmuch as no solution offered, the item was dying slowly, the majorportion of each article being devoted to a rehash of similar unsolvedmysteries.

Anderson read that the body of the golden-haired girl still lay at theMorgue, unidentified. Bit by bit he pieced together the lean storythat she was a suicide and that both the police and the press hadfailed in their efforts to unearth the least particle of informationregarding her. In spite of her remarkable beauty and certain unusualcircumstances connected with her death investigation had led nowhere.

On the following day Anderson again walked into the editorial-roomsof _The Intelligencer_ and greeted the smooth, fat-faced occupantthereof.

"Anything doing yet?" he inquired.

"Not yet," said the newspaper man, with a trace of annoyance in hisvoice. As the applicant moved out he halted him at the door with thewords: "Oh! Wait!"

Anderson's heart leaped. After all, he thought, perseverance would--

"Not yet, nor soon." The editor smiled broadly, and Paul realized thatthe humor in those pin-point eyes was rather cruel.

Five other calls he made that day, to be greeted gruffly in everyinstance except one. One man encouraged him slightly by saying:

"Come back next week; I may have an opening then."

In view of the "pay-as-you-enter" policy in vogue at Anderson'sboarding-house he knew there could be no next week for him, thereforehe inquired:

"How about a little space work in the meantime? I'm pretty good atthat stuff."

"You are?"

"Surest thing you know."

"Did you ever do any?"

"No. But I'm good, just the same."

"Huh!" the editor grunted. "There's no room now, and, come to think ofit, you needn't bother to get around next week. I can't break in newmen."

That evening young Anderson again repaired to his room with hisharvest of daily papers, and again he read them thoroughly. He was byno means discouraged as yet, for his week had just begun--therewere still five days of grace, and prime ministers have been madeovernight, nations have fallen in five days. Six calls a day for fivedays, that meant thirty chances for a job. It was a cinch!

Hidden away among the back pages once more he encountered thegolden-haired-girl story, and although one paper featured it a bitbecause of some imaginary clue, the others treated it casually, makingpublic the information that the body still lay at the Morgue, asilent, irritating thing of mystery.

On the third day Paul made his usual round of calls. He made them morequickly now because he was recognized, and was practically thrown outof each editorial sanctum. His serenity remained unruffled, andhis confidence undisturbed. Of all the six editors, Burns, of _TheIntelligencer_, treated him worst, adding ridicule to his gruffness, arefinement of cruelty which annoyed the young steamboat man. Andersonclenched his hard-knuckled hand and estimated the distance fromeditorial ear to point of literary chin, but realized in time thatsteamboat methods were out of place here in the politer realms ofjournalism.

Four times more he followed his daily routine, and on Monday morningarose early to avoid his landlady. His week was up, his nickels anddimes were gone, nevertheless he spent the day on his customaryrounds. He crept in late at night, blue with the cold and rather dazedat his bad luck; he had eaten nothing since the morning before, andhe knew that he dared not show up at the breakfast-table the nextmorning. For the time being discouragement settled upon him; itsettled suddenly like some heavy smothering thing; it robbed him ofhope and redoubled his hunger. He awoke at daylight, roused by thesense of his defeat, then tiptoed out while yet the landlady was abed,and spent the day looking for work along the water-front. But winterhad tied up the shipping, and he failed, as he likewise failed atsundry employment agencies where he offered himself in any capacity.

At noon he wandered into the park, and, finding a sheltered spot,sunned himself as best he could. He picked up the sheets of awind-scattered paper and read until the chill December afternoongot into his bones and forced him to his feet. The tale of theunidentified girl at the Morgue recurred to him when he read theannouncement that she would be buried two days later in the Potter'sField. Perhaps the girl had starved for lack of work, he reflected.Perhaps hunger and cold had driven her to her death. Certainly thosetwo were to blame for many a tragedy calculated to mystify warmly cladpolicemen and well-fed reporters.

When he stole, shivering, into his bleak bedroom, late that night, hefound a note pinned upon his pillow. Of course the landlady needed herrent--all landladies were in need of money--and of course he would getout in the morning. He was glad she had not turned him out during theday, for this afforded him sanctuary for another night at least. Afterto-morrow it would be a park bench for his.

He left his valise behind in the morning, rather lamenting the factthat the old lady could not wear the shirts it contained, and hopingthat she would realize a sufficient sum from their sale to pay hisbill.

It was late afternoon when he commenced his listless tramp toward thenewspaper offices. Since Burns had become his pet aversion, he savedhim for the last, framing a few farewell remarks befitting the deathof hopes like his, and rehearsing an exit speech suitable to mark hisdeparture from the field of letters.

When he finally reached _The Intelligencer_ editorial-rooms, Burnsrounded on him angrily.

"For the love of Mike! Are you here again?" he demanded.

"I thought you might like to have some space work--"

"By heavens! You're persistent."

"Yes."

"We editors are an unfeeling lot, aren't we?" the fat young maninquired. "No temperament, no appreciation." He laughed noiselessly.

Anderson's cheeks were blue and the backs of his legs were tremblingfrom weakness, but he repeated, stolidly: "Give me a job. I--I won'tbother you after that. I'll make good, see if I don't."

"You think well of yourself, don't you?"

"If you thought half as well of me as I do," Paul assured him, "I'd beyour star reporter."

"Star hell!" testily cried the editor. "We haven't got such a thing.They don't know they're alive, except on pay-day. Look at this blondgirl at the Morgue--they've wasted two weeks on that case." He pausedsuddenly, then his soft lips spread, showing his sharp, white teeth.Modifying his tone, he continued: "Say, I rather like you, Anderson,you're such a blamed nuisance. You've half convinced me that you're agenius."

The younger man's hunger, which had given up in despair, raised itshead and bit into his vitals sharply.

"Maybe I--"

"I've a notion to give you a chance."

"That's all I want," the caller quavered, in a panic. "Just give me atoe-hold, that's all," His voice broke in spite of his effort tohold it steady. Burns wasn't a bad sort, after all; just grouchy andirritable. Perhaps this was merely his way.

Burns continued: "Well, I will give you an assignment, a goodassignment, too, and if you cover it I'll put you on permanently. I'lldo more than that, I'll pay you what we pay our best man, if you makegood. That's fair, isn't it?"

He smiled benignly, and the soon-to-be reporter's wits went caperingoff in a hysterical stampede. Anderson felt the desire to wring thefellow's hand.

"All that counts in this office is efficiency," the latter went on."We play no favorites. When a man delivers the goods we boost him;when he fails we fire him. There's no sentiment here, and I hold myjob merely because I'm the best man in the shop. Can you go to workto-night?"

"Why--why--yes, sir!"

"Very well. That's the spirit I like. You can take your time on thestory, and you needn't come back till you bring it."

"Yes, sir."

"Now pay attention, here it is. About two weeks ago a blond girlcommitted suicide in a Main Street boarding-house. The body's down atthe Morgue now. Find out who she is." He turned back to his desk andbegan to work.

The hungry youth behind him experienced a sudden sinking at thestomach. All at once he became hopelessly empty and friendless, and hefelt his knees urging him to sit down. He next became consciousthat the shoulders of Mr. Burns were shaking a bit, as if he hadencountered a piece of rare humor. After an instant, when Andersonmade no move to go, the man at the desk wheeled about, exposing abloated countenance purple with suppressed enjoyment.

"What's the matter?" he giggled. "Don't you want the job? I can't tellyou any more about the girl; that's all we know. The rest is up toyou. You'll find out everything, won't you? Please do, for your ownsake and the sake of _The Intelligencer_. Yes, yes, I'm sure you will,because you're a good newspaper man--you told me so yourself." Hisappreciation of the jest threatened to strangle him.

"Mr. Burns," began the other, "I--I'm up against it. I guess you don'tknow it, but I'm hungry. I haven't eaten for three days."

At this the editor became positively apoplectic.

"Oh yes--yes, I do!" He nodded vigorously. "You show it in your face.That's why I went out of my way to help you. He! He! He! Now you runalong and get me the girl's name and address while I finish thisproof. Then come back and have supper with me at the Press Club."Again he chortled and snickered, whereupon something sullen and fierceawoke in young Anderson. He knew of a way to get food and a bed and aplace to work even if it would only last thirty days, for he judgedBurns was the kind of man who would yell for the police in case of anassault. Paul would have welcomed the prospect of prison fare, but hereasoned that it would be an incomplete satisfaction merely to mashthe pudgy face of Mr. Burns and hear him clamor. What he wanted atthis moment was a job; Burns's beating could hold over. This suicidecase had baffled the pick of Buffalo's trained reporters; it hadfoiled the best efforts of her police; nevertheless, this fat-paunchedfellow had baited a starving man by offering him the assignment. Itwas impossible; it was a cruel joke, and yet--there might be a chanceof success. Even while he was debating the point he heard himself say:

"Very well, Mr. Burns. If you want her name I'll get it for you."

He crammed his hat down over his ears and walked out, leaving theastonished editor gazing after him with open mouth.

Anderson's first impulse had been merely to get out of Burns's office,out of sight of that grinning satyr, and never to come back, butbefore he had reached the street he had decided that it was as well tostarve striving as with folded hands. After all, the dead girl had aname.

Instead of leaving the building, he went to the files of the paperand, turning back, uncovered the original story, which he cut out withhis pen-knife, folded up, and placed in his pocket. This done, hesought the lobby of a near-by hotel, found a seat near a radiator, andproceeded to read the clipping carefully.

It was a meager story, but it contained facts and was free from theconfusion and distortions of the later accounts, which was preciselywhat he wished to guard against. Late one afternoon, so the storywent, the girl had rented a room in a Main Street boarding-house, hadeaten supper and retired. At eleven o'clock the next day, when she didnot respond to a knock on her door, the room had been broken into andshe had been found dead, with an empty morphine-bottle on the bureau.That was all. There were absolutely no clues to the girl's identity,for the closest scrutiny failed to discover a mark on her clothingor any personal articles which could be traced. She had possessed noluggage, save a little hand-satchel or shopping-bag containing a fewcoins. One fact alone stood out in the whole affair. She had paid forher room with a two-dollar Canadian bill, but this faint clue had beenfollowed with no result. No one knew the girl; she had walked out ofnowhere and had disappeared into impenetrable mystery. Those were thefacts in the case, and they were sufficiently limited to baffle thebest efforts of Buffalo's trained detective force.

It would seem that there can be no human creature so obscure as tohave neither relatives, friends, nor acquaintances, and yet thisappeared to be the case, for a full description of this girl hadbeen blazoned in the papers of every large city, had been exposed incountless country post-offices, and conveyed to the police of everycity of the States and Canada. It was as if the mysterious occupant ofthe Morgue had been born of the winter wind on that fateful eveningtwo weeks before. The country had been dragged by a net of publicity,that marvelous, fine-meshed fabric from which no living man is smallor shrewd enough to escape, and still the sad, white face at theMorgue continued to smile out from its halo of gold as if in gentlemockery.

For a long time Paul Anderson sat staring into the realms ofspeculation, his lips white with hunger, his cheeks hollow andfeverish from the battle he had waged. His power of exclusion wasstrong, therefore he lost himself to his surroundings. Finally,however, he roused himself from his abstraction and realized the ironyof this situation. He, the weakest, the most inexperienced of all themen who had tried, had been set to solve this mystery, and starvationwas to be the fruit of his failure.

He saw that it had begun to snow outside. In the lobby it was warm andbright and vivid with jostling life; the music of a stringed orchestrasomewhere back of him was calling well-dressed men and women in todinner. All of them seemed happy, hopeful, purposeful. He noted,furthermore, that three days without food makes a man cold, even ina warm place, and light-headed, too. The north wind had bitten himcruelly as he crossed the street, and now as he peered out of theplate-glass windows the night seemed to hold other lurking horrorsbesides. His want was like a burden, and he shuddered weakly,hesitating to venture out where the wind could harry him. It was agreat temptation to remain here where there was warmth and laughterand life; nevertheless, he rose and slunk shivering out into thedarkness, then laid a course toward the Morgue.

While Anderson trod the snowy streets a slack-jowled editor sat atsupper with some friends at the Press Club, eating and drinkingheartily, as is the custom of newspaper men let down for a moment fromthe strain of their work. He had told a story, and his caustic wayof telling it had amused his hearers, for each and every one of themremembered the shabby applicant for work, and all of them had wastedbaffling hours on the mystery of this girl with the golden hair.

"I guess I put a crimp in him," giggled Mr. Burns. "I gave him achance to show those talents he recommends so highly."

"The Morgue, on a night like this, is a pretty dismal place for ahungry man," said one of the others. "It's none too cheerful in thedaytime."

The others agreed, and Burns wabbled anew in his chair in appreciationof his humor.

Young Anderson had never seen a morgue, and to-night, owing to hiscondition, his dread of it was child-like. It seemed as if thisparticular charnel-house harbored some grisly thing which stoodbetween him and food and warmth and hope; the nearer he drew to it thegreater grew his dread. A discourteous man, shrunken as if from thechill of the place, was hunched up in front of a glowing stove. Hegreeted Anderson sourly:

"Out into that courtyard; turn to the left--second door," he directed."She's in the third compartment."

Anderson lacked courage to ask the fellow to come along, but stumbledout into a snow-filled areaway lighted by a swinging incandescentwhich danced to the swirling eddies.

Compartment! He supposed bodies were kept upon slabs or tables, orsomething like that. He had steeled himself to see rows of unspeakablesights, played upon by dripping water, but he found nothing of thesort.

The second door opened into a room which he discovered was colder thanthe night outside, evidently the result of artificial refrigeration.He was relieved to find the place utterly bare except for a sort ofcar or truck which ran around the room on a track beneath a row ofsquare doors. These doors evidently opened into the compartmentsalluded to by the keeper.

Which compartment had the fellow said? Paul abruptly discovered thathe was rattled, terribly rattled, and he turned back out of the place.He paused shortly, however, and took hold of himself.

"Now, now!" he said, aloud. "You're a bum reporter, my boy." Aninstant later he forced himself to jerk open the first door at hishand.

For what seemed a full minute he stared into the cavern, as ifpetrified, then he closed the door softly. Sweat had started from hisevery pore. Alone once more in the great room, he stood shivering."God!" he muttered. This was newspaper training indeed.

He remembered now having read, several days before, about an Italianlaborer who had been crushed by a falling column. To one unaccustomedto death in any form that object, head-on in the obscurity of thecompartment, had been a trying sight. He began to wonder if it werereally cold or stiflingly hot.

The boy ground his teeth and flung open the next door, slamming ithurriedly again to blot out what it exposed. Why didn't they keep themcovered? Why didn't they show a card outside? Must he examine everygrisly corpse upon the premises?

He stepped to the third door and wrenched it open. He knew the girl atonce by her wealth of yellow hair and the beauty of her still, whiteface. There was no horror here, no ghastly sight to weaken a man'smuscles and sicken his stomach; only a tired girl asleep. Andersonfelt a great pity as he wheeled the truck opposite the door andreverently drew out the slab on which the body lay. He gazed upon herintently for some time. She was not at all as he had pictured her, andyet there could be no mistake. He took the printed description fromhis pocket and reread it carefully, comparing it point by point. Whenhe had finished he found that it was a composite word photograph,vaguely like and yet totally unlike the person it was intended toportray, and so lacking in character that no one knowing the originalintimately would have been likely to recognize her from it.

So that was why no word had come in answer to all this newspaperpublicity. After all, this case might not be so difficult as it hadseemed; for the first time the dispirited youth felt a faint glow ofencouragement. He began to formulate a plan.

Hurriedly he fumbled for his note-book, and there, in that houseof death, with his paper propped against the wall, he wrote atwo-hundred-word description; a description so photographically exactthat to this day it is preserved in the Buffalo police archives as aperfect model.

He replaced the body in its resting-place and went out. There was nochill in him now, no stumbling nor weakness of any sort. He had founda starting-point, had uncovered what all those trained newspaper menhad missed, and he felt that he had a chance to win.

Twenty minutes later Burns, who had just come in from supper, turnedback from his desk with annoyance and challenge in his little, narroweyes.

"Well?"

"I think I've got her, Mr. Burns."

"Nonsense!"

"Anyhow, I've got a description that her father or her mother orher friends can recognize. The one you and the other papers printeddisguised her so that nobody could tell who she was--it might havecovered a hundred girls."

Rapidly, and without noting the editor's growing impatience, Paul readthe two descriptions, then ran on, breathlessly:

"All we have to do is print ten or twenty thousand of these and mailthem out with the morning edition--separate sheets, posters, youunderstand?--so they can be nailed up in every post-office within twohundred miles. Send some to the police of all the cities, and we'llhave a flash in twenty-four hours."

Burns made no comment for a moment. Instead, he looked the young manover angrily from his eager face to his unblacked shoes. His silence,his stare, were eloquent.

"No! I don't mean that. What I said goes, all right, but I told _you_to identify this girl. I didn't agree to do it. What d'you think thispaper is, anyhow? We want stories in this office. We don't care who orwhat this girl is unless there's a story in her. We're not running ajob-print shop nor a mail-order business to identify strayed females.Twenty thousand posters! Bah! And say--don't you know that no two mencan write similar descriptions of anybody or anything? What's thedifference whether her hair is burnished gold or 'raw gold' or hereyes bluish gray instead of grayish blue? Rats! Beat it!"

"But I tell you--"

"What's her name? Where does she live? What killed her? That's what Iwant to know. I'd look fine, wouldn't I, circularizing a dead story?Wouldn't that be a laugh on me? No, Mr. Anderson, author, artist, andplaywright, I'm getting damned tired of being pestered by you, and youneedn't come back here until you bring the goods. Do I make myselfplain?"

It was anger which cut short the younger man's reply. On account ofpetty economy, for fear of ridicule, this editor refused to relievesome withered old woman, some bent and worried old man, who might be,who probably were, waiting, waiting, waiting in some out-of-the-wayvillage. So Anderson reflected. Because there might not be a story init this girl would go to the Potter's Field and her people would neverknow. And yet, by Heaven, they _would_ know! Something told him there_was_ a story back of this girl's death, and he swore to get it. Witha mighty effort he swallowed his chagrin and, disregarding the insultto himself, replied:

"Very well. I've got you this time."

"Humph!" Burns grunted, viciously.

"I don't know how I'll turn the trick, but I'll turn it." For thesecond time that evening he left the office with his jaws setstubbornly.

Paul Anderson walked straight to his boarding-house and bearded hislandlady. "I've got a job," said he.

"Yes!" he repeated. "I've got a job that carries the highest salaryon the paper. You remember the yellow-haired girl who killed herselfawhile ago?" he asked.

"Indeed I do. Everybody knows about that case."

"Well, it got too tough for the police and the other reporters, sothey turned it over to me. It's a bully assignment, and my pay startswhen I solve the mystery. Now I'm starved; I wish you'd rustle me somegrub."

"But, Mr. Anderson, you're bill for this week? You know I get paidin--"

"Tut, tut! You know how newspapers are. They don't pay in advance, andI can't pay you until they pay me. You'll probably have to wait untilSaturday, for I'm a little out of practice on detective stuff. ButI'll have this thing cleared up by then. You don't appreciate--you_can't_ appreciate--what a corking assignment it is."

Anderson had a peculiarly engaging smile, and five minutes later hewas wrecking the pantry of all the edibles his fellow-boarders hadoverlooked, the while his landlady told him her life's history, weptover the memory of her departed husband, and confessed that she hopedto get out of the boarding-house business some time.

A good night's sleep and a hearty breakfast put the young man in finefettle, and about ten o'clock he repaired to a certain rooming-houseon Main Street, the number of which he obtained from the clipping inhis pocket.

A girl answered his ring, but at sight of him she shut the doorhurriedly, explaining through the crack:

"Mrs. MacDougal is out and you can't come in."

"But I want to talk to you."

"I'm not allowed to talk to reporters," she declared. "Mrs. MacDougalwon't let me."

A slight Scotch accent gave Anderson his cue. "MacDougal is a goodScotch name. I'm Scotch myself, and so are you." He smiled hisboarding-house smile, and the girl's eyes twinkled back at him."Didn't she tell you I was coming?"

The door opened slowly. "Maybe she meant the one on the second floor."

"Precisely." An instant later he was following his guide up-stairs.

Anderson recognized the room at a glance, from its description, butthe girl did not mention the tragedy which had occurred therein, sohe proceeded to talk terms with her, prolonging his stay as long aspossible, meanwhile using his eyes to the best advantage. He inventedan elaborate ancestry which he traced backward through the pages of_Scottish Chiefs_, the only book of the sort he had ever read, and bythe time he was ready to leave the girl had thawed out considerably.

"I'll take the room," he told her, "and I'm well pleased to get it. Idon't see how such a good one stands vacant in this location."

There was an instant's pause, then his companion confessed: "There's areason. You'll find it out sooner or later, so I may as well tell you.That's where the yellow-haired girl you hear so much about killedherself. I hope it won't make any difference to you, Mr.--"

"Gregor. Certainly not. I read about the case. Canadian, wasn't she?"

"Oh yes! There's no doubt of it. She paid her rent with a Canadianbill, and, besides, I noticed her accent. I didn't tell the reporters,however, they're such a fresh lot."

Paul's visit, it appeared, had served to establish one thing, atleast, a thing which the trained investigators had not discovered.Canadian money in Buffalo was too common to excite comment, thereforenone of them had seen fit to follow out that clue of the two-dollarbill.

"The papers had it that she was some wealthy girl," the former speakerran on, "but I know better."

"Indeed? How do you know?"

"Her hands! They were good hands, and she used them as if she knewwhat they were made for."

"Anything else?"

"No. She seemed very sad and didn't say much. Of course I only saw heronce."

Anderson questioned the girl at some further length, but discoverednothing of moment, so he left, declaring that he would probably moveinto the room on the following day.

Prom the rooming-house he went directly to the Morgue, and for asecond time examined the body, confining his attention particularly tothe hands. The right one showed nothing upon which to found a theory,save that it was, indeed, a capable hand with smooth skin andwell-tended nails; but on examining the left Paul noted a markedpeculiarity. Near the ends of the thumb and the first finger the skinwas roughened, abrased; there were numerous tiny black spotsbeneath the skin, which, upon careful scrutiny, he discovered to bemicroscopic blood-blisters.

For a long time he puzzled over this phenomenon which had escaped allprevious observers, but to save him he could invent no explanation forit. He repaired finally to the office of the attendant and asked forthe girl's clothes, receiving permission to examine a small bundle.

"Where's the rest?" he demanded.

"That's all she had," said the man.

"No baggage at all?"

"Not a thing but what she stood up in. The coroner has her jewelry andthings of that sort."

Anderson searched the contents of the bundle with the utmost care, butfound no mark of any sort. The garments, although inexpensive, werebeautifully neat and clean, and they displayed the most marvelousexamples of needlework he had ever seen. Among the effects was a plushmuff, out of which, as he picked it up, fell a pair of little knittedmittens--or was there a pair? Finding but the one, he shook the muffagain, then looked through the other things.